• Rich text support lets users embed a broad spectrum of objects in mail messages, like graphics, fonts, color and OLE 2.0 attachments. The ability to embed OLE objects in messages is a vast improvement over attaching the same information in a separate file. Notes is a world-class OLE container, allowing a user to embed a 1-2-3 or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in a document for review. When the recipient opens the message, the spreadsheet information is immediately displayed, and can be directly edited (OLE in-place activation) without leaving Notes -- making the interaction between applications much more natural and the user much more productive.
• The ability to use Microsoft Word or Lotus Word Pro as a text editor for e-mail messages, so users can create messages with the word processor of their choice.
• A "permanent pen" lets users specify a font, color and type size once, to be applied automatically each time they type. A very popular use of this feature is to reply to a message by annotating the original with a permanent pen, so the recipient can easily see and distinguish both the original comments and the reply.
• Tables can be created on the fly with a click of the mouse.
• A context-sensitive Properties Box pops up on request, presenting all the controls needed to change font type, size, color, bullets, numbering, paragraph alignment and other text characteristics without having to navigate menus.
• When creating a message, users can define collapsible sections that let recipients quickly scan the content at a high level and open only those sections that are of interest.
• The Notes Client further extends the capabilities of rich text to include "personality." Notes lets users pick "mood stamps" (a happy face, 'reminder," "personal," flame message, even a secret agent) to help convey sentiment, confidentiality, thanks and more. Users can also choose from a variety of predefined letterhead options, to give messages a professional or fun look. Both mood stamps and letterhead can be customized by individuals and modified to fit a company's image.

Notes users running Windows 95 can save a message as "Stationery" (including mood stamps and letterhead), which makes it into a reusable template. By setting up a template message as a "short cut" icon on their desktop, users need only click the icon to launch Notes and open a new document that uses that template.

Message senders can also restrict the ability of the recipient to send the message to others. "Prevent Copying" turns off editing tools (cut, copy, paste), printing and forwarding, and permits replies only to the sender. Private conversations stay private with Notes.

Power to Tame the Inbox
The Notes Client has a number of innovative features that let users quickly view, search and organize incoming mail, and compose and address outgoing mail. Users can quickly determine whether a message should be read, discarded or filed. Assistant Access lets an assistant monitor and reply to mail without compromising a manager's ID file or password. By applying the Notes public/personal folder capability, the manager can maintain privacy by placing some messages in personal folders while allowing Assistant Access to the rest of the mailbox.

Finding and Organizing Information
Users can list their messages by sender or by date, and change the sort order with a click on the appropriate column header. Notes also includes universal file viewers, so users can view and print attachments created with popular desktop applications -- whether they have the application or not, and even if the file came from another platform. Or (on Windows) users can launch an OLE 2.0 object's native application in-place in the message, like a 1-2-3 spreadsheet or a Microsoft Word file. Notes comes with document library databases for Lotus SmartSuite and Microsoft Office, where users can create and coordinate review processes using the tools they're familiar with, and securely store the documents for easy retrieval.

Finding messages is greatly simplified by the Notes full text search and relevance ranking capability. Once indexed, any database (mail, discussion, documents) can be searched almost instantaneously. Complex search queries can be built using point-and-click commands instead of search syntax. Users can even search attachments and embedded OLE objects. The results appear as a list of messages ranked by their relevance to the search criteria, such as the number of times a word or set of words appeared in a given document.

To make storing messages more convenient, users can drag and drop messages into personal or public folders, which can be organized hierarchically to any number of levels. Folders themselves can also be dragged and dropped to new positions in the hierarchy, as well as deleted, renamed and otherwise manipulated much like individual messages.

Making Replies Easy and Convenient
The Notes Client lets users easily create replies to one or many message recipients. Type-ahead addressing scans the Domino directory and automatically fills in a recipient's name based on the first few characters typed, saving time and reducing errors. If a name is misspelled, Notes presents a dialog box containing all the names in the directory that "sound like" the name entered.

Domino and Notes also support non-unique names; if a Domino directory lists multiple users named 'Jane Smith," Notes automatically presents a field that lets the sender specify which Jane Smith is the recipient. Domino and Notes even support "business card addressing" -- when users enter an SMTP or X.400 address, the Domino Server determines how to route the message through the appropriate gateway or MTA. The Domino SMTP/MIME MTA also implements Internet standards-based technology that maintains user name fidelity when sending and receiving names that contain accented characters.

A "Reply to All" button automatically addresses the reply to all recipients of the original message. "Reply By" lets senders specify a date by which recipients should reply. "Reply To" lets senders specify another user, to whom replies from recipients will automatically be directed. 'Archive on' lets users specify a date on which a message can be automatically moved to a local file by an Agent.

Notes provides a threaded discussion view that lets users follow the originating message and all replies to it, regardless of which folder a message or reply may currently be in. This lets users quickly scan a series of messages without having to find them one by one. This feature is supported in all Domino databases, including mail databases and discussion databases.

Automation with Agents
Both the Domino Server and Notes Client support Agents, a state-of-the-art automation feature conceptually similar to rules or macros, but much more powerful and easier to use. Agents can be either time- or event-triggered, and can run on either the Notes Client or the Domino Server. Agents can be created using simple actions, or written in the LotusScript language, in Java or in the Notes macro language. Agents can perform a wide range of simple and complex tasks, giving users a powerful, flexible tool to help organize and customize the mail environment.

Agents are built via an intuitive interface that prompts users step by step to fill in fields, check boxes and specify actions (like 'Copy to Folder') or conditions (like "If Documents Have Been Created or Modified"). This process lets users see the flow of actions to be performed by the Agent as they build it.

Users can easily design Agents that will save time and ensure quick access to critical information. For example, a user can create an Agent that looks through all incoming mail for the words 'urgent' or "important' and copies those messages to a folder called 'Hot Issues." This process would ensure that when the user is working remotely and does not have time to get all documents, critical information can be obtained simply by replicating the "Hot Issues" folder.

Agents also have wide implications for automating frequently performed processes. For example, a user can, in minutes, create a mail Agent to move high-priority mail to an 'Urgent Mail" folder and route phone messages to a "Call Back" folder. One of the "template Agents' that comes with Notes lets people who send e-mail to a user know via a return e-mail when that person is out of the office and unable to reply. Users can customize the Agent’s behavior to send one message to one group of people and a different message (or no message at all) to another group. The Agent can even track the names of individuals who have received the "out of office' message, so that no one gets it more than once.

Agents that run on servers can be scheduled and controlled by Domino administrators. The administrator can control which users are allowed to run Agents on a given server and how much of a server’s resources are devoted to running Agent tasks.

All Agents make full use of the Domino and Notes security model; it authenticates the requester, guarantees the request to run the Agent via digital signatures, and verifies access privileges to the target information.

Domino and Notes also support the widest range of mobile clients of any e-mail system, so mobile users can stay connected even when they don't have access to a computer:

• Lotus Phone Notes
• Pager
• FAX